mountainman

By the epoch of Voltaire and Spinoza the christian state church had lost the support of the army. In the epoch of Nicaea, their equivalent academic - the head of the Academy of Plato - the philosopher Sopater, was executed by the 13th apostle Constantine.

The fact is, the theory of the historical jesus is firmly based on the research tendered by the inventor of christian ecclesiatical historiography - the wretched Eusebius. You do not have to go far into the great lengths of "Early Christian History" to understand that Eusebius is the one and only authority for the 300 years of christian history leading into the council of Nicaea. He acts as the editor of the earliest editions of the new testament. He is the chief suspect in a number of conspicuous common forgeries, and he should not be trusted as an historian. What is there to explain away before Eusebius took up his quill?

GakuseiDon

Correct. I'm assuming that Paul learned something about Jesus Christ when he was persecuting the early Christ groups, and that he learned something from the other apostles when he visited Jerusalem.



Paul appears to believe that Jesus was someone who was born a Jew, was crucified and went to heaven. Where is Paul not consistent with a historical Jesus?

I think you are confusing the term "historical Jesus" with "human Jesus".

We have no calculations for ANYONE, as far as I know. Why do we need a number for Jesus?

As for "high probability": I would suggest that the number of examples of people whom are considered as "probably historical" due to being written about within 50 to 100 years after their deaths vastly outweighs the number of people who are considered as probably not historical.

GakuseiDon

Well, no it isn't. Surely there is a huge difference between sources reporting events that occured 500 years prior to sources reporting events 50 years prior.

Do you think that Josephus and the NT is enough to establish that it is highly probable that there was a John the Baptist? Would anyone bat an eyelid if a scholar said that based on those sources that it is highly probable that there was a John the Baptist?

Solo

It is not clear what "verse" renassault is refering to. But he clearly believes that 1 Cor 15:3-11 was written by Paul. I don't but....here is something for you and spin to chew on.


Paul clearly heard of Jesus before he had his revelation of him as Christ. Any problem of using 2 Cr 5:16 to reach that conclusion ?

That, if you want to play the Doherty game, in and of itself does not mean

a) that "Jesus" was not a different version of the mythical figure, previously wholly invented by Paul's competition, and

b) that Jesus was considered Messiah in the Jerusalem community of James. (see eg. Heb 3:1).

Unfortunately though for that theory you have Paul forswearing : I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. (1 Cr 2:2)

That would indicate that in the pre-Pauline original version of the myth - if the figure was wholly mythical - Jesus was either not crucified or his crucifixion was not important. (roughly what Gal 3:1 is telling us).

Agreed ? Any other possibility ?

So then, you and spin need to explain how the proclaiming of this purely mythical crucifixion could trigger persecution by the authorities (Gal 6:12, 2 Cr 11:24-26).

If you can't, Paul is a witness to the existence of a historical figure around which the Christ myth was built.

Regards,
Jiri

spin

OK, you're taking 1 Cor 15 as kosher! so I gotta guess you honestly believe that the appearance to 500 people wasn't apocryphal, an appearance that wasn't worthy of making it into the gospels. Well, then, who were the twelve exactly?

History is the issue that we are trying to deal with. Conservatism doesn't enter into the issue: it's a matter of methodology. Most biblical scholars are not competent to deal with history.

Doubt it: this is the mysterious way he puts it:

• Ph.D., (1976), Michigan State University
  • Area: History and Philosophy of Religion
• M.A., (1973), University of Detroit
  • Area: Philosophical Theology
• B.R.E., (1972), William Tyndale College
  • Majors: Christian Education, Bible, Social Sciences
  • Minors: Philosophy, Greek, English and Speech

His trajectory is clear: theology and philosophy. History of religion, not history. Too bad I couldn't find his thesis topic nor his supervisors.

Sorry, I'm only interested in historians and recent ones at that.


spin

dog-on

Yes, that is not what he says.

a) How do you know?
b) Paul wrote Hebrews?

pre-Pauline?

How do you know it actually did?

gdeering

I may not clear on what you mean. To me this leads to the typical disconnect with Paul. For Paul, historical information from first hand sources should have been abundant. The historical Jesus is the subject, otherwise Jesus is just a demigod and a reference to reach an afterlife? The point is, whether Paul cared for biographical details or not, the information is not there to presume that Paul's had much of an awareness of Jesus' teaching while on earth.

Italicized to contrast teaching (which could have been WOM stories) and biographical detail which might lead one to suppose Paul was interested in his source as a person existing in history.


Gregg

spamandham

Having not examined all the evidence, I couldn't tell you whether I find it simpler to presume any of these men existed or not. In these discussions, "more probable" is often improperly used as a synonym for "more parsimonious".

Personally, I think there is good reason to view Gospel Jesus as a literary construction. If so, then positing a historical core complicates rather than simplifies.

Amaleq13

No, it is just an assumption that follows logically from the given (ie Paul persecuted prior to converting). This holds true regardless of whether those beliefs were about some sort of heavenly messiah or a human messiah.

That Paul fails to explicitly describe those beliefs leaves that question open.

Toto

An assumption with no basis in anything Paul or anyone else says.

Same to you. Why do Christians have to come up with lame excuses, such as Paul wasn't interested in the historical Jesus or any details about him?

You don't like Doherty's Sounds of Silence, but it seems improbable to me that Paul could just omit so many details about a historical Jesus and show no curiosity about him.

Have you read Charlotte Allen's Human Christ? It took some special papal authority for Catholic scholars to even start to think about a historical Jesus.

You have created the need for a number by using the term "high probability." I don't think that any historian uses the term high probability for any event in ancient history. When you call a probability "high" you are overstating the degree of certainty that is possible in this field.

This is the wrong denominator for your fraction. How many characters in written documents are fictional? historical?